Study: Headphone-Wearer Deaths on the Rise

According to this story in Bloomberg Businessweek, the rate of headphone-related pedestrian deaths has tripled in six years. A study in the online journal Injury Prevention looked at media reports of such deaths and found that 16 were reported in 2004-2005 and 47 in 2010-2011.

The study did have its limitations--for example, news outlets are much more likely to publish news of deaths than news of headphone-wearing pedestrians who were only injured--but its findings are still relevant to runners.

“Sensory deprivation that results from using headphones with electronic devices may be a unique problem in pedestrian incidents, where auditory cues can be more important than visual ones,” the researchers wrote.

We've debated the safety of running with headphones before. Do you wear headphones while running? Why or why not?